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The First Lady Is Seriously Off Her Rocker

FIVE seasons into the terrorist-chasing, plot-twisting, clock-and-dagger shoot-em-up soap opera that is the Fox network's "24," viewers have come to expect certain things. They know, for instance, that there will be good guys who turn out to be bad guys and bad guys who turn out to be good.

They know there will be kidnappings, explosions, bureaucratic ineptitude, downloaded schematics, back-channel double-crosses and complicated triggering mechanisms vital to the deployment of devices that are set to go off within the next few hours, jeopardizing the lives of thousands, if not millions of civilians in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. (Previous threats have included biological weapons and nuclear missiles. This year, so far anyway, it's nerve gas. )

And they know that the Counter Terrorism Unit special agent/tormented soul Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) will be forced to do something unpleasant in the name of national security including (but not limited to) torturing suspected bad guys, punching or shooting innocent bystanders who get in the way (he always feels bad about this) and clenching his jaw as he realizes he should probably tell his only daughter that he's not really dead. Also, he or one of his terrorism unit associates will have to get from one side of Los Angeles to another in an impossibly short period of time.

About the only thing viewers might not have been able to anticipate was that this season's break-out character would be a high-strung, sharp-tongued and off-her-meds first lady of the United States, a woman who screams, "I will have your family eating dog food out of a can" at Secret Service agents trying to keep her away from a presidential news conference. Jean Smart's first on-screen appearance as Martha Logan, perhaps the most memorable character debut in "24" history, consists of her looking into a mirror, assessing her make-up and proclaiming, "I look like a wedding cake" just before dunking her face in the bathroom sink.

"I read that scene and thought I have to play this woman," said Ms. Smart. In nearly 30 years she has been offered many parts, but few included such delicious possibilities: a chance to be intelligent and sexy, powerful and mysterious, vengeful and slightly psychotic, a loose cannon in sling-back pumps, married to a weak-kneed opportunist (Gregory Itzin as President Charles Logan) she no longer trusts or respects.

"I just loved the fact that she was so impulsive," Ms. Smart said, sipping Diet Coke at a Ventura Boulevard restaurant not far from the Encino home she shares with her real-life husband, the actor Richard Gilliand, and their 17-year-old son, Connor.

"I don't think she ever counted on being first lady," Ms. Smart said, "and I think she's not well suited for the job. Intellectually she is. But I think she's way too emotional to make the kind of compromises you're forced to make, to appear unrelentingly supportive all the time , even when you're not. She can't stand that."

Howard Gordon, one of three executive producers of "24," freely admits that the original model for Ms. Smart's character was Martha Mitchell, the volatile wife of Richard M. Nixon's attorney general, John N. Mitchell, known for her late-night calls to reporters outlining outrageous theories about conspiracy in the Nixon White House, a number of which turned out to be true. The Nixon administration response -- just as in the fictional Logan administration -- was to label Martha Mitchell as "unstable."

"We think of her as the first lady who cried wolf," Mr. Gordon said of the fictional Martha Logan, "a woman who is armed with the truth" -- that a high-ranking administration official is involved with a terrorist plot -- "but who is discredited by her own mental health history, the fact that she's had breakdowns and delusions in the past."

"It's a fun part to write," he continued, "but it's kind of a high wire act, to make sure she's not so hysterical that you can't see she's still an incredibly powerful and capable woman. To make it work, we had to have an actress you could believe had the strength and intelligence to be a first lady, but the unpredictability of never knowing when she might snap. Jean's name was the first we brought up."

In the 15 years since she left the hit comedy series "Designing Women," Ms. Smart, now in her early 50's, has carved out a steady but esoteric career, drawing rave reviews for roles in independent films like "Garden State" and "Guinevere," scene-stealing parts in mainstream movies like "The Kid" and "Bringing Down the House," her Emmy-Award winning guest appearances on "Frasier" and frequent returns to the theater (she started out with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 1978 and received an Obie nomination for her first Off-Broadway role, 1980's "Last Summer at Bluefish Cove), including a 2000 Broadway revival of "The Man Who Came to Dinner" with Nathan Lane.

Although she has tried, unsuccessfully, to get three comedy series off the ground since "Designing Women" ( 1995's "High Society," 1998's "Style and Substance" and last year's "Center of the Universe" with John Goodman) Ms. Smart said that being a television star is never what she had in mind.

"I grew up with a feeling that money was not that important, almost a reverse snob thing," she said, asked why she walked away from "Designing Women" at the peak of its rating success. "And I could feel myself getting used to the money. I felt like I was getting lazy. We worked maybe 30 hours a week, three weeks a month, I mean, good Lord. "

Her choices, she acknowledged, may have led to smaller paychecks and less star wattage, but they also gave her the freedom to pick her spots and feel good about the parts she took.

"I always wanted to be taken seriously," she said. "I always wanted to feel good about what I was doing and have my peers think that I was talented. I think I've had a really good reputation and that's very important to me."

"What I admire about Jeannie is that she's not afraid to get her hands dirty," said Mr. Itzin, a co-star with Ms. Smart in a play, "Mrs. California," at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles 20 years ago. "There are a lot of actors who won't take roles because they think it might be unflattering. But Jeannie's not afraid to let herself look bad."

Because of the way "24" is structured -- plot lines and character twists are often being revamped even as episodes are being filmed -- Ms. Smart said she had no idea whether First Lady Logan will turn out to be a heroine or a lunatic, whether she'll forgive her husband for trying to have her committed or whether she'll end up by his side, saving his presidency and possibly the free world. Producers, however, have strongly hinted that her character will still be around when the season ends.

But what, she was asked, if the first lady were somehow responsible for the President's demise.

"Oh, that would keep me around for several extra episodes, wouldn't it?," she said. "I've thought about that, President Logan floating face down in the pool, like William Holden in 'Sunset Boulevard.' That would -- be fabulous."